Read Leaving at Noon for Free Online Page A

to break the pattern.”
    The pain hit then, so intense Zoey wrapped
her arms around her belly and rocked. Her throat closed and her
ribs tightened until she feared they’d squeeze the very air from
her lungs.
    She and Theo were falling apart. Their
marriage was breaking up. They were on a one-way rollercoaster
ride, hurtling downhill toward destruction.
    Zoey didn’t think she’d survive the
devastation.
    “ Talking it out would have
been a good way to start,” Fiona said softly.
    It took a while to answer, to swallow down
the grief and find her voice again. “It might have been, if I’d
picked the right times to talk. But I didn’t.” God, she hadn’t even
had the capacity to talk to him decently. “I’d go to him, cranky
from him snapping at me and me snapping at him and wishing we could
be okay again. But instead of saying ‘let’s stop fighting, let’s
work this out’, I’d snap again. In-instead of apologizing for my
appalling behavior, I’d make more vicious accusations.” To which
Theo made counter-retorts, and inevitably, the nasty comments
became malicious arguments where things were said that should never
have been said.
    “ Sounds like you’re both
trapped in a vicious cycle.”
    Zoey nodded. “I…I don’t know how to stop it.
Things just keep getting worse and worse.” Her throat felt rough,
as though the grief were rubbing it raw from the inside. “I want to
find a solution, so badly, but…but there isn’t one. I had to leave
him. Had to come here, or…” Christ, she didn’t want to say it.
    “ Or?” Fiona
prodded.
    “ Or w-watch our marriage
implode forever.”
    Fiona was quiet for a good long time. She
stared at Zoey with concerned eyes, her mouth pursed. “You know
what, Zo?” she asked finally.
    Too exhausted and too miserable to answer,
Zoey shook her head.
    “ I call
bullshit.”
    Zoey blinked in surprise.
    “ Yeah, hon. I call
bullshit. There is not a chance in hell there’s no solution to your
problems. You and Theo were born to be together. You knew it the
second you clamped eyes on him.” She pointed to her forearm. “I
still have the marks your nails left in my skin when you asked me
who he was. You clutched my arm so hard, you almost drew
blood.”
    “ He rocked my world,” Zoey
whispered. She’d never experienced anything like it. The instant
she’d seen him, something had changed, like a tectonic plate
shifting—creating a new continent in the process.
    She’d taken one look and her life had never
been the same.
    “ Love like that doesn’t
fizzle. It doesn’t disappear because you’re facing hard times. You
fight for love like that.” Fiona smacked a fist on the table. “You
do whatever you can to find answers to your problems. You don’t
turn your back and run away. You just don’t.”
    “ God, Fi.” The despair in
Zoey’s tone was audible. “This has been going on for months. If
there was an answer, don’t you think we’d have found it by
now?”
    “ I don’t know.” Fiona
scowled at her. “Have you looked? Have you tried to find
one?”
    Zoey froze.
    “ Have you?” Fiona
demanded.
    Jesus.
    “ You haven’t.” Her friend
gaped at her, eyes filled with horror, fury and
disbelief.
    Mortification crept into Zoey’s chest. She
scrambled to recall a time she’d extended an olive branch to her
husband.
    Oh God.
    Zoey hadn’t extended that olive branch.
Ever. She hadn’t tried to make up with Theo, and she hadn’t
apologized. Not once in the two months they’d been fighting.
    What the hell kind of wife acted so coldly?
What woman in her right mind did that? Fought continuously for
weeks and weeks on end—and never tried to make amends?
    A terrible, horrible, disgraceful wife,
that’s what kind. She’d failed Theo on a fundamental level. Instead
of making an effort to stop the squabbling, she’d let it overwhelm
her. She’d allowed the fighting to increase and proliferate until
it had crushed them both.
    “ What the fuckety